Management Tips

Do at least one load of laundry every day.  And try to fold and put away the clothing right away. 

Laundry, like most things in life, it is extremely manageable in small amounts, but seemingly insurmountable and totally overwhelming when the piles are allowed to accumulate.

Accept mess. 

Things will not get put away.  Your house will get messy.  Acknowledge that your standards have been lowered, whether by choice or by default. Learn to associate an untidy home with a busy and happy home.  And know that it can always get tidied when the need arises.

Plan the meals for your family, even lunches, and grocery shop accordingly. 

Having a sense of what you will be making for dinner and knowing that the right food is available is incredibly comforting as you race home during rush hour and pick up your whiny, not-listening, difficult yet wonderful and beautiful children from daycare. Then, once home, you can almost sort of relax with a glass of wine as you prepare the meal while your children watch some television. But allow yourself to totally ditch your plans and substitute with Mickey D's or order in pizza on those nights when you just don't feel up to the task. Still drink the wine.

Allow your children to watch some television. 

Not a lot. But enough to give you a break when you need it, get some extra quiet time on weekend mornings, and permit a little unwinding for everyone after a long day.

Accept help. 

Whether it is your in-laws coming down once a week to pick the children up from daycare and prepare dinner, your sister coming over to babysit on a date night with your husband, or your neighbours offering to coordinate the arborists' estimates for removing the dead tree on your shared property line, graciously accept the assistance and support of others. Also remember to show your appreciation by bestowing much love and thanks although it may never seem to be enough, treating your babysitter to a special dinner, or raking up the leaves from the large still-living trees on our shared property line.

Remember this quote:  "You will never 'find' time for anything.  If you want time, you must make it."  - Charles Buxton

Try not to use a lack of time as an excuse for not doing the things that are important to you. But don't feel guilty thinking that if it is really important, you'd make time to do it. It's hard to do it all.

Wake up before the kids do.

Waking up early is hard.  Although it can be difficult to get out of bed and get going before 6 a.m., things like: walking the dog, making sure bags are packed and breakfast is on the table, really are a lot easier before little children start making demands for your help and attention. And if necessary, stay in bed until the first one wakes up at 6:30, but take her with you to walk the dog.

Practise yoga. 

It really can be calming and help to centre your focus for a while on yourself. Plus it can give you an excuse out of the bedtime routine at least once a week if you choose your class schedule appropriately.

Visit the lost-and-found on a regular basis.
If you want any chance of recovering the items lost almost daily, it's wise to keep on top of it. Kind of like the laundry.

Use vacation time wisely.
Sometimes, if possible, it might just be a good investment to take a vacation day or two in order to 'get on top of things' again around the house. Wash the windows. Change over the children's seasonal wardrobes. Fix the drywall that the dog has been chewing. Those things that might otherwise never get done. But try also to allow time at least for a pedicure. Or a nap.

Remember that lots of other people are in the same boat.
It can be hard to remember that many of the people at your work, on your commute, in your day-to-day life, are also working parents. Chances are pretty good that even the CEO, the person selling you your coffee and the teachers at the school have also been struggling with disrupted sleep, lost backpacks, and behavioural issues with their children. Or at least been through it in the past.  It's somewhat comforting to know that we are all managing somehow.

Superman and Old MacDonald

It was a difficult evening.  The commute home was long and slow.  I was trying to figure out what on earth we would eat for dinner.  I decided that I'd get the girls first, then make a quick trip to the grocery store for salsa and sour cream.  I was pretty sure I had everything else I needed for black bean quesadillas.  

Daycare pick-up started out just fine.  But after generously allowing them to play on the playground for a few minutes, I ended up counting down from three, screaming my children's names, and chasing after them one time too many.

There is no one else or no other thing in this world that gets me so angry as when my kids don't listen to me.  Especially at the end of a long day.  It would feel so good to yell.  But in the presence of other people, this doesn't seem acceptable. Which just makes me more angry.  The seething beneath the surface, deep breath, mental count down from ten, kind of angry.

I swear, I never had a temper before I had kids.

Dealing with difficult, insolent behaviour in front of other parents shouldn't be hard. They must all deal with the same things too.  So why do I worry that they are judging me, thinking that I have no control, that I'm too strict, that I need to be a more consistent with discipline, that I need to relax.  I'd love if people would look at me with three little kids in tow and think 'wow, she's really got it together'.  Instead, I'm afraid that people are thinking 'wow, that poor haggard woman really needs some help'.

I picked up Superman from the after school program for my oldest daughter. Superman is incredible. 

When the counsellors say Superman, the kids all stop what they're doing, look at the counsellor, put their hand in the air and their finger on their lips. There is silence.

I've started using Superman (albeit less successfully) at home. Sometimes I think I need someone to use Superman on me.

After a bit of a breather and snuggle at home, and a text noting that Husband wouldn't be home until at least 7, I made a decision about dinner. Old MacDonald to the rescue.

(My kids aren't the only ones to confuse McDonald's and Old MacDonald, are they?)
As it turns out, today was McHappy Day.  The girls were greeted by Ronald when we walked into the restaurant, and Olympic swimmer Zsofi Balasz sat with us to eat her Happy Meal. The kids had fun, and in spite of feeding them chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers and French fries, I felt somewhat redeemed knowing that I was supporting a worthwhile cause. McHappy Day helped to make me happier.

I also read this great post about acknowledging the difficulties of parenting young children.  It came to me at just the perfect moment.

And then, finally, the girls were asleep.

It was a happy ending to a challenging evening after all.

On parties and playdates

Yesterday, I dressed up as a princess to go to a birthday party with with almost-5-year old daughter.  It was a princess-party, obviously, attended by about a dozen friends from pre-school, and parental escorts, all dressed up.  The house was beautifully decorated with lanterns and banners. There were fancy cookies, pinwheel sandwiches, fruit kabobs, and a rice krispy tower. Rapunzel, herself, was even there as a special guest.

Meanwhile, beyond a gathering of aunts and uncles and grandparents, I have never even hosted a birthday party for any of my three girls.

I had always thought that turning five was a good time to start throwing birthday parties.  But my oldest is now six and a half, and my middle is about to turn five. And we're still party-free.

We also don't do the playdate circuit.

It's just always seemed too complicated to me.

As for birthday parties, my excuse is partly because my oldest's birthday is in early September,  before school starts.  And at five turning six, she didn't yet have a real established group of friends.  Or least friends for which I had the contact information for the parents. 

I guess that is the real problem here.  My unease in being socially outgoing.  I'm just not good at initiating relationships, making connections and developing friendships.

Which I'm mostly okay with, personally. 

But for my daughters, I know that I need to work harder on this.  It's hard to justify not giving them a birthday party just because I'm uncomfortable approaching their friends' parents.  I don't want to feel responsible for denying them opportunities to have fun with their friends, or for leading them to be as socially awkward as their mom.

So I'm going to work on this.  It'll be as good for me as for them, right?

Next question: Is two weeks enough advance notice for a birthday party invitation for my five year old?